


The Best Medicine

by sadlygrove



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlygrove/pseuds/sadlygrove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spain used to have a voice like thunder and a lust for gold stronger than the sun. (10 vignettes attempting to reconcile Spain's canon sunshine smiles with some of his less than savory history from the text books.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> 10 vignettes attempting to reconcile Spain's canon sunshine smiles with some of his less than savory history from the text books. (Not a particularly happy thing; I'm not sure why Spain doesn't scare as many people as he does.)

o1.

Sometimes, after they're done watching one of America's new blockbusters, someone will whistle low--someone who was deliciously far from Europe and north Africa and east Asia--and declare: "Damn, you sure missed the shit storm with that war, didn't you?"

And Spain will smile, stare blankly ahead, because he fought the whole World War II by himself--against himself--years before it became the thing to do. Why would he have done it again? He just laughed and laughed and laughed--cried a lot too--and slept with Germany once, all while letting England and France sneak through his backyard to safety. They all should have just asked him beforehand and he would have gladly told them that they would be torn apart from their bellybuttons to their jaws. Spain could have saved them time and a whole lot of heartache.

But no one ever listens to him, no one ever listens to his jokes or his explanations of the punchline. So Spain just laughs and smiles, watching alone from the audience as the play goes on to its next scene. Sometimes it's a drama, sometimes it's a comedy; Spain always laughs just the same.

  
o2.

And Spain was very strict with them, because he had to be--he smiles at the Philippines during a meeting once, and she looks as if she's about to _vomit_ \--but not really because he loved them. It wasn't tough love, or the emotion that England called 'tough love' when he had America and Australia and even India beneath his heel. At least Spain can admit to that.

Maybe things are a little bit better between him and his children, brothers, sisters now, but he knows there are still days they'd love nothing more than to see him dead in a ditch. Still he smiles, and Philippines finally gets up, and walks out, muttering something about needing fresh air and a cigarette break.

He had been a monster, back then, but there had been nothing else he'd known to be.

Maybe he's still a monster now.

Spain just smiles, drinks in the scent of her hair as Philippines makes her getaway.

  
o3.

There were times when Spain was drunk, when he told himself that he loved Romano and Romano loved him, that he would crawl into his bed. Spain brushed his fingers through reddish-brown hair--too much Moorish influence in those red strands--and smiled and buried his nose in the crook of Romano's neck. Inhale. Exhale. "Que bello..."

"Boss." A grunt, hands pushing at his face. "Hate it when you fucking smell like damned booze."

"Just tell me you love me." Spain nuzzled into the soft skin further, breathing in the scent of basil and earth. "Just tell me and I'll go."

Romano would hesitate, because lying was a sin, but then again so was gluttony and probably swearing. "Love you. Now get the fuck outta here, sheesh."

But Spain is quite the liar too, and he didn't move, just wrapped his arms around Romano tighter and nibbled at his flesh. Romano would squirm, pretend to hate it, and curse under his breath as Spain's tongue traced his lips.

  
o4.

He was infected once; he could see it at the edge of his eyes, the little red veins that poked and prodded towards his pupils. Spain had a lust for gold that dripped into his lungs, that made him cough and hack day and night.

So many had died. Part of him had loved them all--they had been such beautiful women, with feathers and beads laced through their dark hair--and coveted their skin as he touched and licked, touched and took. They had been so, so beautiful. But that voice in his head like a sing-song chime had told him that it didn't matter; that this belonged to him, and as long as those beautiful-- _he still sees them in his dreams_ \--women remained, he would not be satisfied of his true lust.

He recalls a day where he lay in a bed of galleons that sparkled, and it had been like being drunk or in a soft bed after a tryst. There is a smell, a sound, a voice to gold that only Spain could hear.

Spain suspects he fathered many offspring--Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico and others. But he treated them just the same, didn't he? He was hardly the most nurturing father, the most caring _papa_ , and Spain blames his sickness for his transgressions against his children.

If only he could bring himself to believe it.

  
o5.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?" Spain just smiled, sipping on his wine at the windowsill. The hotel room was so high up, and the city lights so beautiful and far below. He wondered what it would feel like to jump out of that window and into the lights.

There was the scratch of a match, a cigarette burning cherry-red in the low light. Netherlands stared at him. "Like you are now. I don't like it."

"How am I looking at you?"

"Like I ain't here; like it's 1559."

"Mmmn..." Delicately, Spain took his last sip of wine and set the glass aside. "Actually, I was thinking more of the 1400s, back when you were still cute." Standing in one fluid motion, Spain stripped his shirt up over his head and off, tossing it to Netherlands. "Back when you were still pleasant, mi amor."

Netherlands caught the shirt, looked at it briefly before letting it fall to the floor. Slowly, he stood from his chair, smoke billowing from his nostrils like an angry bull. Spain wished he had a cloth of red. "I was never pleasant, least of all with you."

Spain hates to admit it, but he really loves it when Netherlands fucks him. In some part of his mind, it makes Spain think he did a good job raising him to be a bastard, just like he is. Groaning, Spain's hands fisted in sheets and pillows, mewling and whining and cursing as Netherlands bit down hard on a clavicle, breaking the skin. Spain wondered why no one fucks like this any longer, or if it's only with him they're being gentle with. He won't break; he's never broken, not after wars and diseases and a lust for gold that outshone the stars.

Rome used to bite down on him; it made him stronger. France used to also, but it made him weaker. And England would make him bleed first well before they made love--screwed senseless in the belly of a ship--but punches and sword fights were just foreplay back then.

Arching in a sordid line of ecstasy and irritation, Spain screamed.

  
o6.

"Whatt're you looking at, kid?"

He doesn't have a name yet, but he doesn't even know it. So can he really be blamed that he keeps on staring at the man in golden armor and a cape of red?

After a distinct lack of response, the man grunts-- _and he has never seen a man so large and imposing as this one_ \--and stoops down low. "You wanna be protected? Be safe?"

There are curls all throughout the man's hair, and he finds that he likes them. But he finds the man terrible to behold. So he smiles--his failsafe--and nods.

"Good." The man grins and scoops him up into his arms, setting him aloft on his shoulder. He gasps; he has never been so high above the world before. "Come with me; I'll make all of your dreams come true, little one."

  
o7.

Sometimes, when he's alone and washing dishes, Spain finds himself humming Ave Maria and smiling. It's only at the tenth verse that he realizes it.

He doesn't quite know what to think of that.

  
o8.

Spain used to have a voice like thunder. It rumbled low and deep like the bulls on parade, echoed in valleys and hills, sending birds flying in fright. It rang out clear like a bell, made his enemies quake, made his axe fit tighter in his palm. (He's not entirely sure whatever happened to that axe.) Sure, he's still loud now, when he wants to be, but, frankly, there is nothing as loud as thunder on a hot day.

Sometimes his voice comes back to him, on the occasions he wants to _remind_ Mexico whose language she speaks and why, make Morocco green with _envidia_ and let Portugal boil over with memories repressed. Old habits die hard, after all. Otherwise, the only lift in his voice is his laugh, low and knowing, loud and carefree.

Spain used to have a voice like thunder.

  
o9.

"You really need to be more responsible."

"I know," he laughs. "This time it'll be different."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Germany sighs. "I don't believe you."

"So cruel, Alemania!"

He looks as if he's debating whether or not to rip the check out of his book. Spain smiles brilliantly, and Germany finally tears it. "Here. Just take it and leave me be for a bit..."

"Of course! Don't be so stressed; I'll pay you back!"

"I don't believe you," Germany mutters for the second time. It won't be the last.

Spain laughs more, darts forward to kiss a creased brow. "Te quiero."

"I don't believe you."

  
1o.

He watches the play go on and on, alone in the audience as everyone else puts on a remarkable show. Some would say that Spain is weak now, that he lost his glory and fell off a perch so high. And he's not denying that, oh no. But perhaps it's not so bad, Spain thinks, exiting stage left and taking a bow, cutting the strings that held him to the stage. Let others be the main characters, let others be the villains--China, America, Brazil, India, Russia... Let them memorize their lines and put on their costumes; Spain is perfectly content to take a playbill and sit in the third row, just a little off to the side. Maybe one day he'll give an encore, maybe he won't; who's to say?

The world is just one big joke and he's the only one who's gotten the punchline so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Here are your notes:  
>   
> o1. Hitler and Franco only met once. During WWII many downed Allied British fighter pilots were escorted through Spain by the French Resistance and others. Spain was 'neutral' during WWII, having just gotten through a civil war that was basically the same shit on a different day.
> 
> o9. Besides Greece, Spain is one of the EU countries who has a few loans to pay back.   
> 


End file.
